This weekend was the beginning of a bunch of "firsts" for me. My husband and I traveled south to Dixon, IL for the Gentlemen of the Road tour, put on by the band Mumford & Sons. It was a ton of fun, but I realized that I should have done more of this in college. While I've been camping before, I've never camped like this....

And this was early in the night. You should have seen how crowded it got as people were rolling in after dark. While I am a fan of camping, I am not a fan of camping this close to strangers....for many reasons that I'll spare you the details of.Saturday morning we headed into town. The whole town was decked out for this music festival. It was so neat to see everyone so excited. Local businesses had welcome signs, and it really felt like you were in small town America (maybe because we were in small town America)! Check out some more pics from the day:

Sunday we got up early, showered (finally!) and head out to Lowell Parkway to do a little hiking before we started our journey home. It was beautiful, and felt really good to sweat out the greasy food and (too much) beer from the day before (hey, everyone deserves a free day once and awhile!)

This week began easier than I thought. I actually got up on time and felt pretty good at work today. This evening, I attended my first barre class. I had no idea what to expect, but was sweating about 5 min into the workout. The woman who led our class is amazing, definitely someone who pushes you. The studio we were in had aerial yoga straps hanging from the ceiling, and at the end of barre she had us all suspended upside down for some final stretches! Definitely a first for me!

Source: Four Graces Pilates Studio

Source: Asphalt Green

All in all, a good way to start my birthday week. I had some crazier things planned for this week (think jumping out of an airplane on my actual birthday) but I made a deal with my husband that I couldn't pass up. I will; however, tackle some things I've been wanting to do for awhile, as well as end the week by getting over my fear of large bodies of water.

I hope that you're all starting to experiment with new things. I know that this month has proven to be a huge success for my creativity and positive thinking. I love thinking of new things to try (although, doing one every day is getting to be a bit hectic...once every few weeks might be more realistic!)I'd love to hear what you've been up to....XoXo,Nicole